The Ontology of Theatre

Abstract

This thesis examines the nature of theatrical works and performances. Theatrical traditions, and therefore the nature of theatrical works, are essentially dependent on the practices surrounding theatrical performance. I defend a definition of theatre as those practices aimed at producing performances imitating the actions of agents for live beholding by an audience aware of this pretence. I argue that theatrical works are performance directives that prescribe structured actions (either speech acts or physical acts) for performance as made normative in a theatre art historical setting. The elements that constitute the identity of individual theatrical works are dependent on the characteristics that the playwright/composer of the work can prescribe in the theatrical tradition and genre that the work belongs to. The persistence conditions for a theatrical work depend on the appropriate criteria required for the creation of a performance directive within a theatrical tradition. Once created, a work persists just so long as this performance directive is recoverable. Some theatrical performances are intended to be performances of plays, in which case the play is considered the work. Some theatrical performances are not intended as performances of plays but may instead be a performance of the decisions made by a director in the creation of a production. In both of these cases a theatrical work is employed, but in the first case it is the play that is the work, and in the second case it is the production that is the work. I do not consider improvised theatrical performances to be theatrical works because they lack important qualities that are commonly associated with artworks and because there is little evidence that improvised performances are treated as individual works in practice. The methodological approach of referring to art-historical theatrical practices to determine the nature of theatrical works is justified because works are members of social kinds (rather than natural kinds) whose nature is determined by what we think about, and how we engage with, them. Consequently, a broad-ranging descriptivist methodology, instead of a thoroughly revisionary approach, should be used in analysing the ontology of theatrical works.